


Unopened Presents

by Shaymed



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, Multi, Other, The Feast of Winter Veil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 00:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13135305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaymed/pseuds/Shaymed





	Unopened Presents

The crowd had gathered around the tree in Iron Forge. Allies from all over were there to watch the tree lighting and get presents from Great Father Winter. Two children ran through the crowd, one ducking between the legs of the people, startling them, the other moved cautiously, apologizing as he pushed past. 

“Arribet, wait for me!” he called. 

“Hurry up, Tabbef!” she waved him toward her, then turned, her long black hair disappearing behind a mage’s robes.

Taveth stumbled to the front of the gathering, where other small children had gone for a better view. “Arib—”

“Boo!” Alisbeth leapt from behind a dwarf. 

Taveth jumped and backed away from her. “Why d’you do that?”

“‘Cause it’s fun! And ‘cause you shouldn’t be so scared of things.”

“Like _you_?”

“Are you scared of me?”

Taveth stared at his feet and shrugged slowly. “Sometimes.”

“Don’t be! I would never hurt my favorite brother.” She wrapped her arms around him and smiled. 

“Yeah, but he’s not,” an elf with blonde hair said over them. She folded her arms and rolled her eyes. 

“Is too!”

Kel’ori scoffed dramatically. “Is not, snotface. Your hair is black, you’re not one of us.”

Alisbeth frowned and looked over her shoulder at her tangled mass of thick, black hair, then at Taveth’s short blond locks. “Mommy’s hair is light, too!”

“Your _mommy_ isn’t our mom.”

“Daddy said that—”

“Your daddy is an idiot.”

Alisbeth spun and yanked the nearest sword from a hip that she could find. She lifted it and swung at the other elf. Before she could make contact, arms wrapped around her and ripped the sword from her little fists.

“How in the world did you even lift that, little one?” a night elf asked, a hand on the empty scabbard.

She elbowed away from the arms. “My daddy taught me, ‘cause he’s _not an idiot!_ ” she screamed.

Kel’ori’s lips pursed as the taller high elf handed the sword back to the night elf. 

“Dad.”

“Uncle Falren, she called daddy an idiot!”

The juvenile elf folded her arms as her own defense. “She’s still calling Taveth her brother.”

Falren sighed down at his daughter. “They’re kids, Kel’ori. Let them be kids.”

Alisbeth grabbed her uncle’s leg in a hug and stuck her tongue out at her cousin. Falren took a roughly wrapped gift from his pack—it wasn’t wrapped festively like the ones under the trees in homes around Azeroth, but in a dark red paper. He handed it to Taveth.

“Is this the one you wanted?”

Taveth grinned and nodded excitedly, then grimaced as Alisbeth mussed up his hair to ruin the neat part on the side. She set about styling it how she wanted, with his bangs in his eyes and the rest in clumps of spikes.

“Tyndra did my hair!” Taveth complained.

“I don’t like it. You should have long hair.”

“Why?”

Alisbeth shrugged. “So I can braid it.”

Taveth blushed and laughed. 

Kel’ori’s eyes rolled again. “He’d look like a girl.”

“He’d look good!” Alisbeth insisted.

“Okay, you two, calm down. Taveth, did you want to…”

The boy nodded and held out the package to Alisbeth. “I wrapped it.”

“I thought we weren’t opening presents until tonight,” Kel’ori growled.

Taveth flinched and stared at the floor, Alisbeth looked up at Falren for guidance.

“This one isn’t a Winter Veil present, it doesn’t count.”

Alisbeth’s eyes lit up and she tore into the paper. 

“Spoiled brat,” Kel’ori muttered and inspected her manicure.

“Dolly!” Alisbeth squealed. She hugged the high elf doll to her, squashing the porcelain cheek to her own. “Thank you Tabbef!” She gripped him in her free arm.

“Don’t see why she gets special treatme—”

“Be quiet or go find the others and bring them up here.”

Kel’ori scoffed, indignant and dramatic, then huffed her way into the crowd. Alisbeth twisted her fingers through the doll’s dress and chewed on her lower lip as she looked up at Falren.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked quietly.

“No, Kel’ori is just jealous.” He knelt down to comb her tangled hair with his fingers.

“What’s jellyous?”

“She wants what you have.”

Alisbeth hugged the doll closer to her. “M-my dolly?” Her blue eyes rounded in fear of losing her new toy.

“She wants to get more presents, like you do.”

Taveth pouted beside them. “Those are for Arribet, not Ker’ori.”

“I know. And don’t you ever stop giving them to her.”

The children smiled at each other. Alisbeth reached over and they linked hands. 

“You’re my favorite brother.”

~ * ~

Taveth found Alisbeth staring into the fire, her hot chocolate with a candy cane abandoned on the table beside her. The death knight’s lips were turned to a frown. He squeezed himself in beside her, into the squashy chair barely wide enough to fit both of them. He smiled gently when she jumped and stared at him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

She returned his small smile. “Who says something is wrong?”

“Your candy cane is almost melted and your cocoa has barely been touched. And don’t tell me it’s because you can’t taste it, because you’ve always drunk it too fast and burned your tongue so bad you couldn’t taste it, anyway.”

She giggled and nodded. “No, it’s not that. I was thinking of the last Christmas I had at home. Remember it?”

“I remember everything we did together.”

They stayed in silence for a long time, both lost in thought.

“You’re my favorite sister, you know,” Taveth said as he stared into the fire. “Always were.”

Alisbeth giggled and leaned her head on him. 

“You’re thinking about the presents, aren’t you?”

The death knight nodded. “I was waiting for mom and dad to come home. Waited for months, just staring at them under the tree when Falren would take me home…”

“Did you ever open them?”

“No.”

Taveth frowned. “It’s been over a century, Ali.”

“They’re not coming home, I know.” She tugged on his ponytail. “I was right about your hair.”

“So you _do_ like it,” he said, grinning.

“Can I braid it?”

“Eh-heh… No?” He mussed up her hair. 

Alisbeth turned, a wide grin plastered on her face as her eyes glowed brighter. “Wanna open them with me?”

“You still have them?” he asked, astonished. 

She nodded. “In my vault. Come on!” 

She ran ahead of him through the busy streets of Dalaran, shoving people out of the way. Taveth apologized to each one for her actions and politely rushed past. She dragged him into her vault and ran to a corner. 

Taveth’s jaw went slack as he beheld her mountain of gold and her expensive items and clothing. “You have…so much.”

“Just things I’ve collected,” Alisbeth shrugged as she went back and forth, setting the gifts on the floor as she found them. “What’s your bank like? Lots of books, I bet.”

Taveth frowned. “I don’t have a bank account. I don’t have money, and I don’t have books. I just…borrow them.”

She squinted an eye at him. “Don’t you work in uncle’s tavern anymore?”

“Yes, and it’s not very much money.”

“So, how are you paying for your vacation here?”

“It’s not a vacation.”

“Okay, but, your room at the inn isn’t exactly cheap.”

“Private donor.”

“Who is—”

“Oh, hey! Your dolly.” Taveth grinned and picked it up.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I am. I most definitely am.” He set the toy down and went to the stack of gifts. Two were roughly wrapped, while the other two were neat and pretty. “These from you?” He asked, indicating the rough ones.

“Mm-hmm.” Alisbeth dropped to her rear and grabbed one.

“What’s in them?” 

“Don’t remember. Here! Open father’s present!” She held one up to him.

Taveth sat beside her and delicately picked at the strings holding the paper on. Alisbeth ripped the paper from her mother’s present, then laughed. It was a box of petrified cookies and some candy canes beside a flower she’d made out of paper. 

“Mom would have loved this!” She took the flower from the box and slipped it behind her ear. 

Taveth opened the other box and snerked at the contents. They were much the same, with the cookies and candy canes, but instead of a flower, there was a sword made of two sticks tied together and painted.

“I remember helping you make this! We stole Kel’ori’s nail polish. Oh, the trouble I got into for that.” He chuckled.

Alisbeth’s brow furrowed. “Falren sent you to time out?”

“No,” he said. “Kel’ori smacked me.”

“Well, next time I see her I’m going to have to punch her for you. No one hits you. Never.”

“Except you.”

She punched his shoulder. “Damn straight.”

He rubbed the area and slid the other two presents closer to Alisbeth. “Let’s see what they got you.”

Alisbeth opened the big one first. Inside were two helmets, one painted with red and the other with green. A note inside the box said to be careful. The death knight laughed and handed the green one to Taveth.

“Hmm?” he questioned.

“Remember the foam swords? And our parents getting angry when we’d hit each other in the face? They wanted to take the swords away.”

He laughed. “They _did_ take them away and we just used sticks. The foam didn’t do as much damage, so they gave them back.”

Alisbeth laughed, her brow furrowed. “Is that how it happened?”

Taveth nodded. “I told you, I remember all of the nonsense we got into.”

“I guess my dad thought of an alternative to taking away the swords. Just protect our heads.” After a moment of tapping thoughtfully at the helm, Alisbeth picked up the little gift, so small it fit into her palm. When she lifted the lid of the gift box, a folded note popped up, the page yellow and crumbling with age. She opened it carefully. “ _Until you’re old enough for the real thing._ ” She set the note aside and peered into the box, her lips curved in a happy grin. Her fingers gently plucked up a pendant on a chain. The pendant was a small, glowing replica of the Redblade. Tears lined her eyes. “It’s perfect.”

Taveth took the chain and clasped it around her neck. “Wish you’d opened these sooner?”

The death knight shook her head. “Only if mom and dad had been there.”

Taveth slipped his hand into hers and they both squeezed tight. “I miss them, too. Happy Winter Veil, Arribet.”

“Happy Winter Veil, Tabbef.”


End file.
